Stories to haunt you night or day

The Unspeakable Banquet

Pardon us while we take a brief detour through Crazytown. Since we failed to mention it earlier, please note that some of these entries contain stories that are not for the squeamish, and this particular entry-to paraphrase the great Roger Ebert-will make you squeam.

"Asexual" is a perfectly valid sexual orientation, or more specifically a lack of one. Some people simply don't identify sexually at all, and don't see sexuality as a component of their being. While this is normal (if rare), Japanese artist Mao Sugiyama took his asexuality to the furthest extreme any of us would ever care to think about: He surgically removed his genitals. But that's not all; oh, if only that were all (we're saying that a lot today).

Mao held a banquet during which six guests paid the equivalent of about$250 per plate for the privilege of eating Mao Sugiyama's cooked genitals. And yes, they knew what they were eating, willingly paid money for it, and one even blogged about the experience. And though only six ate, over 70 people attended and watched.

Despite somehow adhering to health and cooking codes, and preparing his genitals with mushrooms and parsley (no, we can't believe we just typed that either), police finally settled on a charge they could make stick-indecent exposure. As of this writing Sugiyama could be looking at a hefty fine and a couple years in jail. So what possible reason could he have for his stunt? Toraise awareness of "sexual minorities, x-gender, asexual people." We'll leave it to you to ponder if serving your own cooked genitals to paying customers is a valid method of raising awareness of anything except your own gibbering insanity.